Ahhhh, Mayor Bloomberg.

Mayor Bloomberg of NYC recently weighed in on the immigration debate. I think all involved would do themselves a great service to pay close attention to a certain portion of his position:

2. Increase Lawful Opportunity. Baby boomers are starting to retire, America's birthrate continues to slow, and our visa quotas remain too low. As a result, we need more workers than we have, and that's exactly why so many people want to come here. In most cases, those here illegally are filling low-wage, low-skill jobs that Americans do not want. Recent studies put the lie to the old argument that immigrants take jobs away from native-born Americans and significantly depress wages. Global economic forces are responsible for the declines in the real wages of unskilled workers and occur regardless of whether immigrants are present in a community. Moreover, any slight wage decline is more than offset by substantial increases in productivity.

First off, Mr Bloomberg failed to tell us which study or studies he was referring to, but here at Garvey's Ghost we have sited numerous studies that show Bloomberg to not know what he is talking about. But what Bloomberg does know and what workers all over the world will need to understand is this portion:

Global economic forces are responsible for the declines in the real wages of unskilled workers and occur regardless of whether immigrants are present in a community. Moreover, any slight wage decline is more than offset by substantial increases in productivity.

What are these "Global economic forces (tm)" that Bloomberg is talking about? Is this something like a hurricane? A flood? Earthquake perhaps? No far from being some "act of God" of which we cannot predict much less control, these global economic forces(tm) are the product of decisions made largely by small groups of people with more money than morals. These individuals have decreed that it makes sense to pay people in third world countries salaries that they probably don't pay their maids to produce products that they mark up by some secret profit formula and sell to Americans (and others) who gloat over the "good deal" they got.

Yes folks, the "global economic forces" in question are no more than people who eat and pass feces like you and me who have decided for "economic reasons" that reducing labor costs is the best means appease the god called "profit". But they want you to believe that the reason why certain jobs are going to certain places, or why certain people "immigrate" to other countries is due to some nebulous BEEO: Barely Explainable Economic Object. This BEEO as Bloomberg states is responsible for the declines in real wages of unskilled workers. Of course he didn't really have anything to say about semi-skilled labour or even skilled labour. Don't worry, he'll get to that at some later date. Maybe.

So Mr. Bloomberg wants us to believe that the BEEC is OK because "any slight wage decline is more than offset by substantial increases in productivity." Oh why thank you for clearing that up Mr. Bloomberg. If the wages of the working poor leaves them more poor, sorry, poorer, it's OK because the company has realized higher productivity. Hoooray company! This is what the business class, you know that very small percentage of the world population wants everyone to believe: Productivity is good for everyone. Well no, not really, productivity, especially in manufacturing increases the company income it does squat for the worker. The question is, and what needs to be confronted is the profit motive. Garveyism, which many people mistake for a capitalist ideology, had as a part of it's platform a cap on profits. While I'm sure its logistics would be hard to hammer out, this is not necessarily something that will kill companies. It simply puts the brakes on exploitative practices by businesses.

The NY Times Sunday Magazine recently ran an interview with Richard Rogers who has a company policy that the CEO cannot make more than 7 times the amount of the lowest paid employee. Clearly then this BEEO is determined by people who simply do not want to pay more to their workers. But they won't say that to you. Instead you'll be told about "global economic forces" that are responsible for lower wages and expected to believe it. Well what else should you expect from someone who calls striking workers thugs and criminals?

Technorati Tags: Blackanomics, politics